SOIL AND LAND RESOURCE INVENTORY

Equitable and sustainable management of natural resources not only provides for a sound strategy to remove rural poverty and enhance rural livelihood, but is also imperative for national security. The alarming rate of depletion of natural resources is the single most challenging factor that has drawn the attention of farmers, technicians, scientists, planners, administrators and policy makers. The constant compulsion for increasing agricultural production to meet the food needs of the increasing population has adversely affected the carrying capacity of the soils thereby aggravating soil degradation. As 60% of our agriculture is rainfed, mainly concentrated in hilly and mountainous regions, where public investment is negligible, widespread resource degradation, low productivity and mass poverty is concentrated in rainfed areas. A sound resource management strategy is fundamental to ensure sustainability of agricultural production. Soil, as a resource is the key determinant that has to be managed in a scientific manner in order to keep it sustainable. Soil information is vital for proper diagnosis of soil, optimal use of soil resources, adopting land use as per land capability potential and maintenance of soil health. It is imperative to generate soil information with spatial distribution to cater the demand of various stakeholders dealing with soil related activities in the implementation for various developmental programmes in the state.

The Department serves to provide sound soil and land resource information highlighting soil and water conservation needs for optimizing resource utilisation adopting scientific land use as per land capability for ensuring soil health. The soil and land resource inventory of each area carried out by the Department will provide necessary scientific database for adopting suitable soil and water conservation measures to prevent soil erosion, enhance ground water recharge and to synergise agricultural sector through enhancing productivity.The generation of scientific database on soil and land resources through various kinds of Soil Surveys for formulation and execution of developmental programmes at micro and macro level is one of the major mandate of the department.

Reconnaissance soil surveys are carried out to prepare resource inventory of large area such as a district, state region, etc. This provides information needed for broad land use planning, agricultural development and for detailed soil survey.

Detailed soil surveys provide inventory of the soils of the area for micro level planning. It is undertaken in priority areas like watershed development projects, village level planning, etc which can be obtained by mapping of all the existing land resources like soils, climate, minerals and rocks, ground water, vegetation, crops, land use pattern, infra structure, marketing facilities, etc.

High Intensity Soil Surveys are carried out for location specific inventorisation. For eg. A Farm, Research station etc.

Detailed Soil Survey will be initiated in areas where Reconnaissance Soil Survey had been completed. Detailed Soil Survey at panchayat level was started in full swing subsequent to the completion of Reconnaissance Soil Survey after VIII Plan period in the state. During the initial period, Detailed Soil Survey was undertaken at taluk level or for special projects such as irrigation projects, Soil Conservation schemes, Research Stations and Farms under the Kerala Agricultural University, survey of other institutions, DSS of watersheds under NWDPRA, WGDP, NABARD, etc. Village level maps were generated for taluk wise Detailed Soil Survey. These works were carried out by various offices sanctioned for particular schemes without any geographical limitations.

The soil and land resource inventory reports and maps are the final output of various intensities of Soil Surveys. They contain detailed description of each soil unit with general description of geographical conditions, soil problems, crop production, crop suitability, land capability, irrigability, soil conservation priority, conservation measures to be adopted, problems with present land use, suggestions for improvement etc. They also contain socio economic details of the panchayat. These reports are made available to the various user agencies for planning various development programmes on soil and water conservation, water management, farm level planning, land reclamation etc.